It’s a difficult moment for David Moyes, whose team has taken seven points from its first Premier League games, and has suffered two losses to its traditional rivals Liverpool and Manchester City: the latter one humiliating.

He believes that his squad lacks strength in key areas, and in his press conference last night expressed regret at his club’s failure to secure one or two players who

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However, it might be - while Moyes waits to rectify that in the January transfer window - that he has some of the answers right under his nose. What’s more, he may even take encouragement from the example of his opposite number,

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Shinji Kagawa, who enjoyed an outstanding season at Borussia Dortmund just before arriving at Old Trafford, has all of the ability needed to galvanise his team’s attack. It is notable that he was involved when his side scored their only goals from open play since the start of the season,

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Moyes has been tentative about using him so far, not playing him in the biggest games, but it was in those same games that Kagawa shone brightest in Germany: particularly in the 5-2 destruction of Bayern Munich in the domestic cup final.

There is encouragement to be drawn, too, from the progress of Raheem Sterling, a young and thrillingly talented England forward who is developing well under Rodgers.

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, the 18-year old Belgian who is surely due, if not a series of starts, then certainly a regular diet of twenty-minute cameos against tiring defences.

Much has been made of Manchester United’s failings in central midfield, but whilst Marouane Fellaini is not Roy Keane he is certainly good enough, alongside Michael Carrick, to recover and then supply the ball regularly to the feet of his wide forwards - as, indeed, he showed against Leverkusen.

What Moyes can do most productively now, in the absence of any much-vaunted (and possibly overstated) signature signing, is be brave, and to put faith in youth.